Today the photos come from near our property. Actually looking at the top photo our place is back in the trees towards the left of the photo. Taken on the way to work this morning it shows the field that the owner spent most of the day yesterday getting ready for his crop of the spring. Since we've been living up here he's been growing Alfalfa, two cuts then he lets some cattle and his own horses loose on it to clean up the rest. It rained most of yesterday, and with the clouds it's supposed to rain again today, and it has. Not a constant like yesterday but it did rain.The photo below is looking across in the opposite direction of the first photo and shows another and much larger field that has also been getting prepped for the new crop. Already much of the area is getting green again, even with temp still going into the 20's at night. In about a month I'll post new photos from the same place and you'll see the difference!
I was able to finally wash the winters dirt and mud off the vehicles on Saturday. It was Sunny all day and even in the mid 50's for awhile. The hardest part in washing the trucks/cars Saturday was the fact that out of the faucet the water is cold as ice so with the soap mitt my hands would ache from the cold! But for a few days they'll be clean! At least on the outside. Next weekend I'll go for the insides of them with all the tracked in mud and dirt.
For us, not much else going on. Stacy is still working on her quilt projects. She's got one ready to quilt and almost ready with a second. I'm just working on getting everything ready to run that I'll need to start using again, lawn and weed machines etc, and planning out some summer projects, and there's always summer projects!
There's been a lot in the area press about how this years fire danger is probably going to be way up there with all the lack of snow this winter. I just finished listening to the unabridged audio book "The Big Burn" about the largest fire in the country that just happened to occur 100 years ago this August. It was pretty interesting and so much more relevant now that we live up here in the general area where it happened. The main town of focus in the book is "Wallace, Idaho". A town about 3 hours South and East from our area and more famous for being the backdrop town, and filmed a lot in for the movie "Dante's Peak".
The book said in August 1910, it had been really wet and snowy the winter before, then nothing at all in rain for almost 6 months. Over 2,000 mostly lightning started fires were burning in the area of 3 states, Washington, Idaho and Montana and around August 19th, 1910, they all merged into the biggest wild fire there had ever been in the U.S. Reminded me of the "Grand Prix" and "Old" fires back in California in 2003. Those fires merged at the Cajon Pass to be one long fire from L.A. County to the Big Bear area.
Supposedly our area, while logged, hasn't burned anywhere near that much since that "100 years" fire. We hope it still won't this year! The summer of 2006, our first summer here full time, was also really dry. It got to "stage 5" fire hazard. At this stage you can be cited if you are smoking a cigarette in your own car with the window rolled down. No powered equipment of any kind can be used in any area near any trees or forest. I think it's very possible it could get that bad again this summer too since we just didn't get any snow/rain to speak of at all. We'll have to see what happens.
More later, Tad
For us, not much else going on. Stacy is still working on her quilt projects. She's got one ready to quilt and almost ready with a second. I'm just working on getting everything ready to run that I'll need to start using again, lawn and weed machines etc, and planning out some summer projects, and there's always summer projects!
There's been a lot in the area press about how this years fire danger is probably going to be way up there with all the lack of snow this winter. I just finished listening to the unabridged audio book "The Big Burn" about the largest fire in the country that just happened to occur 100 years ago this August. It was pretty interesting and so much more relevant now that we live up here in the general area where it happened. The main town of focus in the book is "Wallace, Idaho". A town about 3 hours South and East from our area and more famous for being the backdrop town, and filmed a lot in for the movie "Dante's Peak".
The book said in August 1910, it had been really wet and snowy the winter before, then nothing at all in rain for almost 6 months. Over 2,000 mostly lightning started fires were burning in the area of 3 states, Washington, Idaho and Montana and around August 19th, 1910, they all merged into the biggest wild fire there had ever been in the U.S. Reminded me of the "Grand Prix" and "Old" fires back in California in 2003. Those fires merged at the Cajon Pass to be one long fire from L.A. County to the Big Bear area.
Supposedly our area, while logged, hasn't burned anywhere near that much since that "100 years" fire. We hope it still won't this year! The summer of 2006, our first summer here full time, was also really dry. It got to "stage 5" fire hazard. At this stage you can be cited if you are smoking a cigarette in your own car with the window rolled down. No powered equipment of any kind can be used in any area near any trees or forest. I think it's very possible it could get that bad again this summer too since we just didn't get any snow/rain to speak of at all. We'll have to see what happens.
More later, Tad
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